


John stays

by marysutherland



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Gen, Hounds of Baskerville
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:18:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marysutherland/pseuds/marysutherland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock wonders why John doesn't walk away.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John stays

John doesn't stop walking away when Sherlock tells him: "I don't have friends. I've just got one." Even though it's a brilliant line, and Sherlock knows it. He's spent his life getting away with murder – well, perhaps not murder, but some fairly close approximations - because he can always win people round. Molly, Mrs Hudson, even _Gregory_ Lestrade: he always knows how to charm them just enough to make up for his previous bad behaviour.

John only stops walking when Sherlock tells him that he's helping solve the case. John doesn't find Sherlock charming. John thinks he's amazing, but also that he's an idiot. He points out sardonically when Sherlock's showing off or trying to be cool or been wrong in his deductions. So why does John stay? For the thrill? But he stays even when there's no case and Sherlock's brain is eating itself from the inside. And when the cases aren't exciting but horrifying, traumatic.

Because he's helping other people, of course. Louise Mortimer barely knows John, but it's him she begs to stop Henry Knight, not the police. So John goes out and disarms an unstable man with a gun, because that's what he does. John stays, Sherlock realises, because of people like Henry. People who desperately need someone to rely on who is kind as well as brave.

 

 


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